In the past decade there have been a number of Palestinian communities completely destroyed and many of the civilians residing in these camps put under bombardment killing untold numbers. The media has barely noticed these events despite their being reported in local news. Mahmoud Abbas and the other Palestinian leadership in the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Hamas and other leadership in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria have said nothing. They have had no reaction what so ever. Judging from their silence one would believe that these Palestinians meant nothing to the Palestinian leadership. What could have been the reason behind their silence? Further, there have been no dire reports or protests across Europe. Usually the Europeans react quite vehemently to even the slightest hint of any acts against Palestinians even with no proof of actual abuse. Why nothing coming from the Europeans with the destruction of these Palestinian communities? There has been almost no reaction from the United Nations or the plethora of their organizations that monitor human rights and the Palestinians community health whenever there are any suspicions of Israeli misdeeds. Yet these attacks have garnered no reactions whatsoever. That raises the question of why the quiet when these Palestinians have been slaughtered, their homes destroyed, their communities destroyed and those fortunate to survive sent homeless wandering the countryside with little if any hope for their future. Where are the cries of horror over these events?

What has not made the news has been the attacks by the Syrian military, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezballah forces in Syria and Lebanon on the Palestinian camps and communities located in these nations. You might remember the news about attacks by Bashir al-Assad using barrel bombs, fifty-five gallon barrel sized explosive device filled with nuts, bolts, screws and nails often soaked with poisons designed to inflict the most horrific injuries to those it does not murder, on civilians. Well, what the news did not bother to inform the world about was that the majority of those attacks were against the largest Palestinian refugee camps in Syria. These camps were located in Homs, Deraa, Jaramana, Khan Eshieh, Qabr Essit, and others across all of Syria. Many of these camps have all but disappeared from the face of Syria with very few refugees remaining there, mostly old and sick who were unable of leaving. Bashir al-Assad claimed that the Palestinians, who are Sunni, had risen up against him and his Shia allies joining the terrorists which he was fighting in the beginning of the civil war and since. This was his excuse for attempting to eradicate these camps and the people trapped within. These attacks have continued periodically ever since getting less coverage with each attack as if it comes under covered that and it is old news. Anyways, these Palestinians are being slaughtered by other Arabs; we cannot blame Israel so it really does not matter.

Now the violence against Palestinians has spread to Lebanon. Over the past week fighting has spread across the Ein el-Hilweh camp outside Sidon. The violence has lasted much of the past week with a ceasefire finally being reached over the weekend and security forces provided by Fatah presumably are now in control of the camp and the violence has quieted for now. The news reports all make the same references that Fatah Palestinian forces are engaged with radical Islamists without making any further identification of exactly who these radical Islamists might be. One can only wonder why there has been no further identification as seen in the captions of the pictures below from the Associated Press. The one name used was reported in the demands by Palestinian Security Forces demanding that the Islamist fighter Bilal Badr surrender to authorities. A resident reported that parts of the camp suffered damage from shelling. This creates a threatening picture as the Palestinian Security Forces do not reportedly have artillery or other heavy weapons larger than RPG’s. Many of the refugees have attempted fleeing the camp largely being held in Mosques hoping to return to their homes and praying they have homes to return to. An AFP correspondent has reported that the refugee camp has suffered major damage with a number of residents having been trapped inside their homes throughout the fighting. UNWRA has begun attempting to return the camp to some degree of normalcy with dozens of young people volunteering on Friday to clean the streets of damage and rubble left by the fighting. The camp reportedly is home to over fifty-thousand Palestinians refugees including at least six-thousand Syrian refugees fleeing that violence only to now suffer more Arab on Arab violence.

A member of the Palestinian Fatah Movement fires an RPG during clashes that erupted between the Palestinian Fatah Movement and Islamists in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, April 9, 2017. Ein el-Hilweh, the largest of 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, is notorious for its lawlessness and is home to some extremists who sympathize with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Smokes rise during a clashes between the Palestinian Fatah Movement and Islamists in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, April 9, 2017. Ein el-Hilweh, the largest of 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, is notorious for its lawlessness and is home to some extremists who sympathize with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

This story will receive slim coverage, perhaps a blurb between the closing commercials and credits on the hourly news cycle once or twice every few days, a story almost in passing as an afterthought. Why has the slaughter of Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps in the thousands over the last five years escaped major coverage by the media in the Western media, especially the liberal media in the United States and across Europe? Where have the urgent demands emanating from the United Nations with cries of hysterias over the murder of these innocents, and Palestinian civilians even? Why no top of the fold, bold, two inch headlines in the New York Times telling of the slaughter of these Palestinians who want no more than to be allowed to live in peace and seek work? Perhaps the reasons are simple; Israel is completely missing from this picture. These are Palestinian Arabs behind barbed wire, refused the right to work in most professions, especially outside the camps, refused permission for normalization into the population despite the fact that a number of these refugees have families residing outside the camps who are citizens of Lebanon and also in Syria though many of them are now refugees themselves from the Syrian conflict. These are the forgotten Palestinian Arab refugees who only count as part of the presumed five to eight million refugees descendants of the original seven-hundred-thousand refugees, their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and perhaps also great-great-grandchildren all forced to remain in the camps where their children will also be forced to live presumably permanently. These camps are home to the only refugees in the world who became refugees by heredity never to be permitted to merge with the society with which they share history, language, religion and often have relatives residing in the very nations refusing to permit their normalization. Why are these people being tortured in this way? They are the Arab weapon which they hope will destroy Israel when their demands that they be granted residence and citizenship in Israel and then vote in an Arab government which will destroy the Jewish population and end the Jewish State. The news will not report this either because to any normal mind this is beyond acceptable and borderline ridiculous. Their being murdered by other Arabs is not new, not of any consequence to the Arab world and unwanted by their own people but the world will some day declare war on Israel because Israel will refuse to accept these refugees as a problem Israel must solve. Israel sees this situation as what it is, an Arab problem and a sign of their neuroses. And that problem continues anew with more bombings and fighting in Syria which threatens to return to Lebanon as well.

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